


well-versed in loneliness

by stardazed_daydreams



Series: nameless [3]
Category: Sanders Sides (Web Series)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fae, Alternate Universe - Human, Burns, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fae Morality | Patton Sanders, Fluff and Angst, Human Anxiety | Virgil Sanders, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Implied/Referenced Child Neglect, Kid!Fic, Loneliness, M/M, Minor Injuries, POV Morality | Patton Sanders, Seelie Court, i would like to formally announce, implied/referenced child abandonment, so Please dont give your name to fae, that everyone in this au suffers from dumb bitch disease
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-30
Updated: 2019-09-30
Packaged: 2020-11-08 14:00:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,205
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20836649
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stardazed_daydreams/pseuds/stardazed_daydreams
Summary: He is lonely.Then... he isn't.





	well-versed in loneliness

Patton is young. 

He isn’t sure how young, exactly, but if you asked him, he’d be able to tell you.

He’s funny like that.

Nobody asked him, though.

Nobody asked him much of anything.

He’s fine with that- he’s alone, mostly, with no one to talk to but the plants and animals. He makes do, because he doesn’t know anything different. 

He likes to sing. 

He likes to sing, so he does, making things up or echoing things he’s heard other fae sing. 

It’s lonely, singing to himself, but he won’t learn that for a while.

He sees his mother twice a year, during the shifting of the courts, winter to spring, summer to autumn. 

She does not talk to him, or acknowledge him in any way - he barely exists to her. 

Patton does not know that this isn’t normal. 

He goes to the revels anyway, and he learns to dance and sing and weave magic easy as breathing. 

Through gossip and his peers, he learns the most important thing about being a fae- 

Names. 

A name, he learns, is a powerful thing. 

So he doesn’t tell anyone his, and he gets none in return - this is the way things are, the way they always have been and always will be. 

* * *

He is still young when he first ventures from the woods. Too young. One of the youngest of the fae in Wickhillis, equivalent to a human child. 

He leaves the forest and stumbles upon a fence, high and sturdy, made of iron. 

He touches it, because he doesn’t know any better, and he wails as it sears his hand. 

Inside the fence is a house.

The back door to the house swings open, and a human comes out, concern wrinkling his eyebrows.

He is Young, too, and when he sees Patton wailing, he rushes over, stumbling over his feet and nearly falling in his rush to push open the gate and grab Patton’s wrist. 

“Owchie,” the human says.

Patton sniffs, and nods. 

“I can fix it,” the human says. “Come on.” 

He tugs Patton insistently through the gate and up to the house. 

He tries to pull Patton in, and Patton yelps as he smacks against something solid yet invisible in their doorway.

Frowning, the human drops his wrist. “Come on,” he says.

“I can’t,” Patton says.

“No,” the human argues, “kee-pause the only people who can’t come in are the fairies, and-” his mismatched eyes go wide. “Are you a fairy?”

“Yeah,” Patton says with a frown. 

“Is that why you burnt your hand?”

Patton shrugs. 

“Oh,” the human says. “That’s cool.” He looks at Patton with suspicion. “What’s your name?” He asks. 

Patton backs up a step. “I’m not s’posed to tell strangers,” he says.

“Me neither,” the human says. 

They look at each other for a moment. 

“My name’s Virgil,” the human says. “I’m this many.” He hold up four fingers. 

Patton smiles. “I’m Patton,” he chirps. “I’m six years, three months, and six days old.”

“How’d you know that?” Virgil asks. 

Patton shrugs again.

“Cool,” Virgil repeats. 

“Virgil!” a voice calls from outside. “Shut the door, you’re letting the cold in!” 

“Gotta go,” Virgil says. “Come back soon?”

“Okay,” Patton says, smiling brightly. 

Virgil closes the door. 

Patton goes back to the forest.

He is a little less lonely. 

* * *

Patton finds a way to visit Virgil at least once a week. The garden growing in his backyard flourishes, and Virgil’s parents take credit for it- that’s fine, they don’t know any better.

Virgil tells Patton that he’s lonely, too, because the kids at his school think he’s freaky because of his mismatched eyes and pale skin. 

“Some of them think I’m a fairy in disguise,” he says. “That doesn’t seem so bad, though.”

“It’s not bad to be a fairy,” Patton says. “It’s pretty fun.” 

“It seems fun,” Virgil says wistfully. 

Patton wishes he could make him a fairy so they could be together forever. 

He doesn’t tell Virgil so, but he wants to. 

* * *

“It has come to my attention,” his mother says, “that you have adopted yourself a human.”

Patton frowns at her. She never talks to him, ever, and now that he’s got a friend she just pops in out of nowhere? 

“That’s fine by me,” she says, “but be careful. The Unseelie see humans as weak. If they think you are attached to one, they will torment him.” 

Patton crosses his arms stubbornly. “I can protect him,” he says. 

She smiles, condescending. “Of course you can,” she says. 

She leaves. 

Patton does not stop visiting Virgil. 

She does not talk to him again. 

* * *

Patton follows Virgil as much as he can, because he has no other friends. 

As they grow, Virgil gets more and more time to see him- soon, they meet up every day, for hours at a time. 

It’s never enough. 

One day, Virgil meets him at their spot with a small instrument.

“It’s a ukulele,” he says. “You can play music and stuff.”

He holds it out, and Patton takes it.

“It’s- um, for you,” Virgil says, face bright red. 

“Thank you,” Patton says with a smile. 

“I can teach you how to play,” Virgil says. 

“Please?” Patton asks hopefully. 

They sit in the grass and Virgil walks him through the chords, smiling for the longest Patton had ever seen.

Patton learns quickly, committing this moment to memory because he is afraid that one day he’ll wake up and Virgil will be gone forever. 

* * *

Virgil misses a day. 

He hasn’t missed a day since they were Young, and this fills Patton with unpleasant emotions, ones that ricochet in his ribcage and gnaw at his heart. 

He clings to the ukulele and tries his best to find Virgil, but Wickhillis is armed to the teeth against fairies, and he can’t go into any of the buildings.

He sits in their meeting spot for hours.

Virgil never comes. 

The next day, he’s there before Patton is, eyes red. 

“S-sorry I missed yesterday,” he says, “my mom, she- she-” he bursts into tears.

Patton is frozen. 

He doesn’t know what to do. 

He doesn’t know what to _ think _. 

He wraps his arms around Virgil and holds him close, rubbing small, soothing circles on his back.

Virgil never finishes his sentence.

He doesn’t have to. 

_ She’s dead _. 

* * *

“What?”

“I said, that’s bullshit,” Virgil says, arms crossed. “She’s only talked to you _ once _ ? _ Ever _?” 

“... yeah,” Patton says, squirming. 

“That’s bullshit,” Virgil repeats. “A good mom- she wouldn’t-” he breaks off and looks away, rubbing the hem of his sleeve between his index finger and thumb. “That’s awful.”

“I guess,” Patton says with a frown. 

“I’m right,” Virgil says, “and you know it.” 

Patton thinks of his mother, and remembers what Virgil has told him of his. “Yeah,” he says. “I know.”

* * *

_“_ _So they know you’re mine.” _

The words echo in Patton’s mind. 

He peers at the golden bracelet on his wrist. 

A gift, from his mother. 

_ So they know you’re mine. _

Virgil tells him that it’s stupid. He says that Patton should take it off. 

Maybe that’s true, but he doesn’t. 

He can’t let go of this. 

It’s his only piece of her. 

It’s not enough. 

_ It’s never enough. _


End file.
